28.6.12

Sent to you by nunok via Google Reader:

Seattle Architect Matthew Coates, President of Coates Design Architects, has teamed up with Aircraft Structural Engineer James Green of Building Container LLC, to create a container home like no other.

Imagine a container that can be delivered to nearly any site on the globe and enclosed within are the structural components to build a house. Better yet….there's no need to return the container; it becomes an integral part of the structure.

The Coates-Green team turns the idea of container homes inside out, literally. The traditional container home uses the box as shelter; the team's improved concept integrates the container into the structure of the home. For example, it may be reborn as the kitchen, living room or bedroom. The original idea came about when Green designed and built a home in remote Turkey on a site stipulating no concrete foundation. Using a shipping container, the conventional concrete foundation was replaced with removable frames to support the container and extended framework, forming the structure for the house.

Green was recently granted a US patent and has international patents pending. He selected partner Coates Design Architects because of the firm's experience with innovative, modular and sustainable housing.

The team intends to adapt the steel-structured designs to suit multiple markets: affordable housing, remote/off-grid housing, emergency housing, and even luxury versions. The first prototype is scheduled for completion by early 2013.

"The "Eco-Pak" home changes the way we think about modular housing. Traditional container houses, designed to hold cargo, have not been highly successful because they're claustrophobic and costly to modify – eventually the cost-benefit ratio falls apart. We are doing something ENTIRELY different….it's one thing to renovate the inside of a shipping box, but quite another to create an Eco friendly home that uses the box as structure." ~ Matthew Coates